Heatherposer said:
Ok great! That makes sense. I noticed how much my range decreased on the freeway. Yes, I already used one of these $10 chargers which totally sucks. There don't appear to be any public charging stations within walking distance of work, weird in San Francisco, but a couple people have their home stations on Plugshare so hoping I can offer a little $ to one of them to let me charge until I get mine set up. I mostly sit in traffic, so I think during my regular commute I'll do ok. But we'll find out Monday morning!
Thanks again for all the tips. Any advice on who to use for installing a charging station?
You don't need to install a charging station, you need to install a 240V circuit, minimum 40 amps, preferably future proof it a bit and get a 50 amp breaker. Probably run 6 gauge wire to a NEMA 14-50 RV plug in outlet. Order your 30 Amp or 40 Amp EVSE unit for about $400 to $600 with a 14-50 NEMA plug on it, and at least 24 or 25 feet of cord to the J-1772 handle that you plug in to the car port. Put the 14-50 pug in the new outlet box the electrician installs. Hopefully your exisiting electrical panel will handle an additional 40 or 50 amp dual pole circuit breaker. If that doesn't work, see about a 30 amp circuit breaker that you can run a 20 to 24 amp EVSE unit to... some units, like the JuiceBox 40, you can open up and adjust a potentiometer and tweak the amperage adjustment down to 80% continuous of what ever your circuit breaker is capable of. For example, on a dedicated 240V 30 amp circuit, say a dryer, you could adjust a Juice Box 40 by removing the screws on the cover, and setting it down to a maximum of 24 amps drawn, and still be fine with the circuit not being overloaded and the wiring in the walls and panel not getting hot. 24/30 is 80% 24 amps will still charge you pretty darn fast, 4/5 the rate of a 30 amp unit,which with 240 V residential , is the full 7.2kwh your on board charger is capable of handling.
Do yourself a favor, get on your laptop, load up Plugshare.com and start surfing... go to your settings and check "J-1772" as the only type of plug active in your searches. Start surfing around on the map to find the green level 2 balloons nearby and make notes of addresses. you may have to start out the hard way, fighting and grubbing some electrons to charge your battery until you get an electrician in, or a boyfriend with some electrical savvy to help get you sorted out.
Pull out your ChargePoint cards out of your glove box, and activate them.
Load Charge Point app on your smart phone too, and surf away, getting familiar with local charging areas, and their pricing structure. Free charging invites leeches and mooches, and hard to find open charging stations. Pay for kw at a 15 cent or 20 cent per kwh will only set you back a couple of bucks, sometimes you'll find free Charge Point chargers too. Or hang out at car dealerships if you must, VW, Audi, Nissan, Kia, Honda, Toyota, Ford, Fiat and Chevy dealerships, if they sell electrical cars, have level 2 chargers available. Offer to pay for the electricity you need, above what ever the market rate is, for the owners troubles.
The good thing is you bought an SEL, it's easy to add 30 to 32 mile per charging hour on their 208V 30 amp level 2 chargers.
